WASHINGTON — Some progressive groups are pressing Sen. Michael Bennet to try to amend a health care reform compromise to include the government-run insurance plan known as the public option.

It’s just one of the potential land mines that await Senate Democrats over the next five days, as they aim to pass fixes to a reform bill and put the final stamp on a historic legislative victory by week’s end.

For their part, Republicans are planning to use the narrow wiggle room allowed under a process known as reconciliation to try to strike pieces of the compromise altogether and then bombard it with amendments.

Either one of those contingencies could upend a delicate legislative endgame, Senate Democratic leaders have made clear, sending the bill back to the House and potentially torpedoing the effort.

“Amendments, good, bad or otherwise have the ability to kill this bill,” a senior leadership aide said Monday.

But that has put Colorado’s Bennet in the cross hairs of some groups who see him as their last chance to restore the public option, a key legislative priority of the left almost from the beginning of the debate.

In the past month, Bennet has become the hero of progressives, after he authored a letter — signed by at least 23 other senators — to Senate leaders pressing them to use reconciliation to revive the public option.

“He didn’t put out a letter saying, ‘I support the public option except if leadership wants me to be a toady to the party,’ ” said Jane Hamsher, who runs the influential liberal blog firedoglake.com.

Not all liberal groups are challenging Bennet, however. The Progressive Campaign Change Committee, which had actively touted his push for the public-option vote, is hoping that there can be a later vote, perhaps attached to next year’s budget, said co-founder Adam Green.

But that’s not enough for Hamsher.

“He raised money, he built his list,” she said. If Bennet doesn’t offer an amendment, “he’ll look like a hack who was only in it when he thought there was nothing he could do.”

Hamsher, whose site has collected more than 20,000 signatures on a petition to persuade Bennet to offer the amendment, hosted Bennet’s primary challenger, former state House speaker Andrew Romanoff, on the site Monday.

Romanoff has declared his unconditional support for the public option and has also pressed Bennet to offer the amendment.

“Restoring the public option would strengthen health care reform. Leadership means more than making a speech or writing a letter — it means taking a stand, even if the leaders of your party aren’t ready to stand with you,” Romanoff said.

Bennet spokeswoman Adrianne Marsh countered that trying to fix the bill at this point is too risky.

“He will not recklessly sacrifice this bill while tens of thousands of Coloradans are losing their health insurance and seniors are facing critical decisions about their medication,” she said.

“Michael spent the last two weeks encouraging the House to include the public option in their bill by spearheading his letter, but changing the bill at this point will put the entire bill in jeopardy.”

Democrats will have to remain largely united if the current strategy is to work, aides say.

Once the Senate takes up the reconciliation fixes, debate will be limited to 20 hours, probably ending Thursday.

That will be followed by what Democrats are now calling “vote-o-rama,” a series of back-to-back votes on amendments to the bill with only one minute between them.

Although debate is strictly limited under reconciliation, the number of amendments is not, and Republicans could offer dozens, even hundreds.

How far to drag out the process is now a point of contention among GOP senators, who concede that Democrats probably have the votes to pass the reconciliation package, which requires only a simple majority of 51.

If Republicans can come up with an amendment that passes — or if a Democrat breaks rank and offers a potentially popular alternative to the bill — final passage of the compromise could be delayed for weeks.

Amendments must be under the jurisdiction of the finance committee or the health committee, including amendments that would be widely popular with Democrats.

One remote possibility is that Republicans, in a tactical maneuver, would call for the reinstatement of the public option, putting Bennet and others who signed his letter in a tight spot.

“Senate Republicans will now do everything in our power to replace the massive tax hikes, Medicare cuts and mandates with the reforms our constituents have been calling for throughout this debate,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, vowed just after the House vote Sunday.

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